What is communism, can we separate it from the horrors of Stalin & what about capitalism's crimes?!

[Pogo]

I would humbly submit that just because a utopia isn't possible, doesn't mean we need to sleepwalk into a blade runner style dystopia wirher- which is frankly where capitalism seems to be taking us right now.

You might want to ask yourself why every country which espouses communism invariably descends into a mass murdering nightmare.

So, no. You cannot separate the horrors of Lenin or Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot or Castro or Ceaușescu from communism.

Of course you can. And you must. Otherwise your conflation is simply doing rhetorically what the named dick-tators did politically.

Everyone you name here was an autocrat. Doesn't need to be overthought beyond that. You could have added Hitler and Mussolini and any number of others, and still had autocrats who didn't fit the conflation.

Kind of ironic that you'd fall into a dichotomy fallacy immediately after calling out a false dilemma.

 

[basquebromance]

all the social chauvinists are now "Marxists". dont laugh!

 

[Pogo]

What is communism, can we separate it from the horrors of Stalin

Of course, and so we should. Stalin is to communism as tires are to raspberries. The tire could run over them but that doesn't mean they're related.

Simplified, communism is a system where the collective rather than the individual, owns the joint. There are various intentional communities and Christian sects that have been living that way for centuries, in complete peace. A philosophy that addresses the "deadly sin" of Greed.

Only a profound idiot would believe that communism could actually be made to work.

You're ignorant if you believe the Mennonites and Quakers practice communism. They have privately owned farms and observe the institution of private property.

And you're an ignorant twat since I said nothing about "Mennonites" or "Quakers". Only a profound idiot would plug in terms that weren't even there.

The Hutterites however have been doing it for five hundred years. And have never fought in anybody's war --- which is why they've had to pull up roots over and over and migrate. Including from here, when a couple were tortured by the US Army and died at Leavenworth.

I think we still have some Hutterites settlements here in the US, but yeah they were persecuted in the first world war. Wilson's abandonment of his own liberal constituency may have helped end the progressive era.

But yeah, capitalism is not always tied to individual rights, and socialism is not always hostile to individual rights.

They had migrated (en masse) to the Dakotas from Russia, the last place they were living, when that country demanded military service. After the experience with the Hofer brothers in 1918 they pulled up stakes and moved (en masse again) to Alberta and Manitoba. Later they reached an agreement with the USG that they could be left alone as conscientious pacifists without being tortured, and some moved back to the Dakotas (mostly SD) and Montana. Today there are more of them in the Canadian prairies than in the States

I concur about Wilson, speaking of autocrats. 1918, when those Hutterites were tortured to death and then sent home (their corpses) dressed in the military uniforms they flatly refused and despised, was the same year a mob demanded Earnest Starr kiss an American flag, and when he refused to do so HE, not the mob, got arrested, convicted and sentenced to hard labor in prison. And the following year brought the infamous Palmer Raids where people got deported for their political views.

 

[dudmuck]

A bromance with a political theory that has killed more humans than religion or any other thing you can name. Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot.

How many will needlessly die in Venezuela? It is a failed ideology. Meanwhile, Capitalism has raised millions of humans out of destitute poverty.

Communism is as much about absence if state as it is about absence of class. Stalin was all about loyalty to himself and his ideollgy; with brutal enforcement of that.

Venezula had nothing to do with communism. Their problems were caused by corruption and too much reliance on oil, which is unsustainable under any of the -isms.

But here in USA we have a different concern: inverted totalitarianism.

 

[Pogo]

I would humbly submit that just because a utopia isn't possible, doesn't mean we need to sleepwalk into a blade runner style dystopia wirher- which is frankly where capitalism seems to be taking us right now.

You might want to ask yourself why every country which espouses communism invariably descends into a mass murdering nightmare.

So, no. You cannot separate the horrors of Lenin or Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot or Castro or Ceaușescu from communism.

Communism itself is based upon a view that humans would evolve into a classless society where, in theory, govt would be unnecessary. Hence, Orwell's observation that all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.

However, I'm not sure that is true for all social collectives where participation is purely voluntary.

Indeed "voluntary" is crucial. Anything that's forced is by definition artificial. In my Hutterite example there are a goodly number of young adults that get curious and strike out to the world we live in to try it out, mostly boys. After experiencing both paradigms about 99% of them then return to the colony finding the outside establishment way too selfish.

Imo, you're asking two separate questions. I was told "Marx may have been a hell of an economist, but he was a shitty judge of human nature." That is, the notion that a classless society can just evolve where the entire society lives as from each according to his means and to each according to his needs is never going to happen. It is human nature that "some animals" will seek to be more equal than others. Consequently, communism will always devolve into a totalitarian torture state with govt based upon terror, as G5000 said.

How did soviet society perch the terror state on the throne for a century, and why did it only fall when it's vassal states like Poland and Czechoslovakia gained the military power to leave? The best book I've read in the last 35 years or so is the most recent translation of Master and Margarita, and I think the answer to the question is just what is deeply rooted in Russian society. A willingness to be dependent that is so strong, people will give up anything

--- and there's the other side of the coin, "willingness to be dependent". The breeding ground for autocracy and dictatorship. I call it 'mob mentality' and just alluded to it in the events of 1918. Which is also, didn't mention it, the first instance of the national anthem being trotted out at a sports event.

There is much willingness to be dependent afoot among us right now with way too many authoritarian-passives willing to swallow literally anything in the quest for the drug-rush of hero-worship. Way too much.

 

[BluesLegend]

Capitalism's crimes?

I hate agreeing with you (-: but I too would need more information on what crimes are inherently caused by capitalism. However, our view of capitalism is that it goes hand in hand with individual rights legitmate govts only govern with the consent of the governed. That is not true world wide.

Agreeing with me is the path to enlightenment.

 

[BluesLegend]

your grandchildren will be communists

Capitalism's crimes?

^^^ bad sushi?

 

[BluesLegend]

Capitalism's crimes?

hedonism is a crime, yes

What does this have to do with Bill Clinton?

 

[Pogo]

Russia interferes in our election, and the submissives don't want Trump to bitch slap him in public for it because that might make Putin invade Europe!

BWA-HA--HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!

Oh, man. That's priceless. Just...priceless.

I think the Baltic States and Poland see Putin for exactly what he is, and what his goals are. And Trump is probably very correct in saying Germany and Belgium aren't spending enough for their collective defense, but by and large all are increasing spending.

The US spent $686 billion on defense last year — here's how the other NATO countries stack up

So the question is whether Trump thinks the US gets anything out of the collective defense of Europe, or should Putin just have his way without our helping Nato, and if he thinks Nato is our interest, why isn't he telling his supporters?

The idea that "we piss all our money away on weapons, therefore you should too" reminds me so much of the whole mentality of addressing criminal gun violence with institutional gun violence, like trying to put a fire out with gasoline. The same mentality, writ large. Ditto for the wacko "arm the teachers" mentality.

 

[basquebromance]

a democratic republic is the best political shell for capitalism

 

[basquebromance]

capitalism will fall as it rose. and its legacy will be put in a museum of antiquities!

 

[basquebromance]

the demand that the state be abolished is an anarchist demand.

 

[basquebromance]

FDR stopped giant companies that were smothering their small competitors, not by offering better products or lowers costs, but by using shady practices that stopped competition before it started

thats why William Randolph Hearst used to call FDR "Stalin Delano Roosevelt"

 

[basquebromance]

capitalism is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. one car hurtles off the tracks, then another crumples, then fires and explosions and bodies flying everywhere

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

capitalism will fall as it rose. and its legacy will be put in a museum of antiquities!

First Capitalists gouged Whites, and non-Whites for profits, now they're still gouging Whites, and non-Whites for profits.

 

[basquebromance]

the modern capitalist economy, the one that produces all those bubbly stock market records and corporate profits and private concerts with Maroon 5 and Katy Perry. what's happening is an economic boa constrictor that is squeezing working families so hard they cant breathe.

 

[bripat9643]

the international slave trade, the world wars, tens of millions of people died under capitalism!

Slavery existed 10,000 years before capitalism.

 

[bripat9643]

capitalism will fall as it rose. and its legacy will be put in a museum of antiquities!

First Capitalists gouged Whites, and non-Whites for profits, now they're still gouging Whites, and non-Whites for profits.

Whereas socialism enslaves Whites and non-Whites.

 

[bripat9643]

Trump paid more compliments to a F'N commie dictator than he did to our own government ...

F TRUMP

By "our own government" you mean our banana republic intelligence agencies.

 

[fncceo]

socialism, communism, and anarchism were all vital political movements in the 1920s. simpler times!

Simpler people